Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the opposition is picking up the same lines like a soon-to-be-gifted kettlebell, but these repetitions will not get them the gains they seek, because they require Canadians to forget everything before yesterday. We are in a trade war, and in that trade war we are performing very well. We are getting more jobs than the United States. We have foreign direct investment at the highest lev…
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Mr. Speaker, oil and gas production in Canada is at record highs, up 34% in the last 10 years. We have managed to do that while reducing emissions in our country by 6%. We have found a way to sustainably grow and meet the growing needs of the world, including diversifying needs from allies that are increasingly requiring lower carbon emissions. We are building strong. We have approved Ksi Lisims, …
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Mr. Speaker, I feel sad for the members opposite, who look through the good news to find the bad news every day and bring their misery to the chamber. Here is the absolute reality. There has never been a better time to be in energy in Alberta. There has never been a better time to be in energy in Canada. We are building, and we are building strong. We welcome the Conservatives to get on board.
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Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite well knows, oil and gas production in Canada is up 34% over the last 10 years. Compare that to global production, which is up only 6%. These are record production levels that we are seeing. We are seeing new infrastructure coming all the time. Obviously, there is Trans Mountain. We are now talking about optimizing that. We have Ksi Lisims. We have Taylor to Gord…
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Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague is sincere in his wanting to support the forestry sector. He does try to work with us on occasion in committee. I really do hope, however, that Conservatives will bring that forward more positively in the House generally, and help us vote in support of an agenda that is trying to modernize and strengthen the forestry sector in Canada. We have announced $2.5 billion…
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Mr. Speaker, the digging for conspiracies about Brookfield is just exhausting. I think this entire House is tired of it. We trust our regulators to make decisions, and we work on the political level to make sure that the framework supports good decision-making. I think we just have to put aside some of this searching for conspiracies on the other side.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise today to speak to the Standing Orders. I have not been a member of Parliament for very long, but this is a venerable institution. Our regulations, procedures and practices are part of a parliamentary tradition dating back to the Magna Carta. They were adopted by thoughtful parliamentarians who came before us to respond to Canada's unique …
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Madam Speaker, I think that would be very challenging to do without getting into matters of debate on a regular basis. I do want to note though that it would also be nearly impossible to answer some of the questions. Here are some samples from QP just yesterday. There were multiple questions about whether we would please adopt Conservative policies. That is very difficult and broad. There was also…
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Madam Speaker, I do believe that one of the things we should explore is mixing up who is up and for what duration on each day, and I think that having Wednesday PMQs is a good idea. One of the challenges we saw in practice was that it then became a question of, “Why is the Prime Minister working only one day a week?” The challenge with implementing anything like that is that we are going to need t…
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Madam Speaker, the United Kingdom, I understand, does a version that is somewhere between written and oral, in which a question has to be put on the Order Paper. The Order Paper gets very long; there might be 300 questions on it at some point, but a minister knows the questions. This allows the minister to prepare and to get the answers ready. I think something like that could be explored. I do ap…
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Madam Speaker, I agree with all of my colleague's first three reforms. I think they are all worthy of exploration. I will say, as a father of three young children, an 11-year-old, a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old, and also as the son of aging parents, that I have really appreciated the flexibility that hybrid sittings have allowed on those unique occasions when it was necessary. My father was …
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree that the forestry sector is a vitally important sector for Canada. It is part of our Canadian identity. It is, of course, part of our Canadian economy, and the tariffs and duties that are being levelled on us are completely unjustified. It is true that we are seeing mill closures. We are seeing strain across the entire system, whether that be in primary saw millin…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague has been visiting university campuses. Members of the House may not know I was vice-president at the University of Calgary before being elected. Youth employment and youth education are issues near and dear to my heart, and I am very happy to have the privilege of answering the member's question. Students certainly face challenges they did not face in years pa…
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Madam Speaker, I will action those when I receive them. I appreciate the member's advocacy. I want to cap this all by saying we want to grow. We want to build. We want to have the strongest economy in the G7, but some of that requires the plans we have put into motion actually being allowed to be put into motion. That includes passing the budget implementation act. It is vitally important for this…
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Madam Speaker, I would invite members and anybody watching to look at the statistics themselves. Of course, someone can pick month-over-month numbers, but if we look at the trend line, we see that it is very clear: Progress is being made, and that progress is absolutely contrary to what the United States is seeing, where the trend is going in the other direction. I think that speaks very well for …
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Mr. Speaker, what can we say about the motion? It includes a few things we are already doing and a few things Canadians rejected. It feels like the Leader of the Opposition found it in a jacket he has not worn in a while. It is time of new ideas. We have some like the MOU with Alberta. It is an exciting time to be an Albertan. We are getting things built, and we invite the members opposite to get …
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Mr. Speaker, we support a pipeline. We support the whole MOU, which is a careful balancing of the economy and the environment and gets us away from the United States as a primary trading partner. This is great news. It is also an MOU that balances the interests of indigenous peoples and other jurisdictions. We do not support, and we are happy to vote against, games played by the opposition that ma…
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Mr. Speaker, Albertans are steady people and sensible people, and they know imaginary taxes are imaginary. They know there is no packaging tax, and they know that wages are growing in this country. While there is much work to do, we are managing a very difficult storm very well. We welcome the members opposite to help us with that storm, instead of whatever this has been today, because this has be…
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Madam Speaker, I welcome the progress made in the amendment, but I am very curious as to how it did not mention industrial carbon pricing and the increase of the industrial carbon price as part of this amendment, one of the most important parts of the MOU. Would the member be willing to consider further amending his motion to do the entire MOU rather than, again, cherry-picking the things that his…
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Madam Speaker, there are a couple of ways to look at that. There is recklessness in how we might approach getting a project built, and there is recklessness in the balance between the environment and the economy. I will speak very briefly to both. First, it would be reckless to not consult with people. It would be reckless to just say we can will these conditions into fruition. We saw what happene…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that struck me about the Conservative amendment that was moved recently was that it expresses support for the Pathways project. However, the Leader of the Opposition emphatically told me that they do not support a price on carbon. I am wondering if the member has any thoughts on how they could possibly reconcile that without creating a subsidy of tens of billions of …
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Madam Speaker, that is simply not the case. I was a senior official for the Government of Alberta at the time. While I cannot go into confidences, the reality is that nothing there approximates reality.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. One thing that struck me about the Conservative amendment was that it had carbon capture and sequestration as something they could support, but it did not talk about a price on carbon, which is essential for carbon capture and sequestration to work. Otherwise, what happens is that we are subsidizing oil companies instead of making oil companies pay a c…
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Madam Speaker, this government would be very happy to support a motion for the entire memorandum of understanding. The memorandum of understanding is a balance that makes sure we are striking interests from coast to coast to coast and doing it in a way that strengthens our economy, strengthens our environment and makes us less dependent on the United States. It is an excellent memorandum of unders…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg North. Before I entered politics earlier this year, I was a regular commentator on political strategy. One thing I tried to do in my appearances, particularly on a popular political podcast, The Strategists, was to lift the hood and show how and why political strategic decisions get made. It was my belief that by identifying and…
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Madam Speaker, the member made comments about the differential. I agree that it is important to manage the differential between WTI and WCS, or presumably between Brent and WCS, given that he is talking about a pipeline to the west coast. The differential is driven by quality differences, such as the sulphur content and the gravity of it, as well as transportation costs. I wonder if the member cou…
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Mr. Speaker, I personally believe that more is required. It is not enough, and we are going to need to figure out new ways to address emissions as we move forward. Some of those technologies are in infancy, and some do not exist yet, but it will require significant investment to get us to where we need to be and, in fact, push beyond that to start taking carbon out of the air to allow us to undo t…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question. Of course, our government is always ready to listen to Canadians, and of course, budgets are always moment-in-time documents. We did engage with Canadians in our pre-budget consultation, and the insights gathered through these consultations and online submissions played a vital role in shaping the budget. This is a plan to build major infrastr…
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Mr. Speaker, it was heartening to hear the member opposite say he wants the MOU to proceed. I hope he does realize that includes strong industrial carbon pricing, moving the effective price of carbon in Alberta from approximately $25 a tonne to $130 a tonne. I welcome that kind of environmental commitment, but it is very inconsistent with what I have heard in the House before. However, this gets u…
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree. That is just the simple reality of it. However, I do think it would put additional pressure on the United States to potentially come to the table. Hopefully that is something that could be leveraged by our negotiators to get strong deals for our affected sectors. It is just very painful to see, and of course, the government needs to be there for them as those secto…
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Mr. Speaker, of course, this is a case that we are following very carefully. I will note that this is probably a question better targeted toward the justice minister, but I will say that in terms of the view of the case, one of the things that we are aware of is that while this is a lever that the President has used in the United States, there are other levers, so we should not assume, just based …
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Mr. Speaker, I worry that the follow-up betrays a bit ignorance of Canadian jurisprudence and the operating of the oil sector. I have worked on many pipeline projects in my career, and it is not just building a pipeline; it is building the product to get into that pipeline. That is going to take some time. Those things need to be aligned. Now, Alberta will not even submit a case until the spring. …
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Mr. Speaker, we stand with them. We stand with them with supports that allow them to keep those jobs. We stand with them when they lose those jobs and are in those unemployment lines, with more supports there as well. We stand with the companies by investing in them heavily. We will always stand with our forestry communities. I invite the member to work with me to bring even more supports to those…
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, we stand with the affected communities. It is terrible to see the job losses. The minister has talked to Domtar and the B.C. minister of forestry. We want those jobs back, and we are going to work very hard to get them back.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, the unjustified trade war that the United States has brought on softwood lumber is unacceptable. We are working hard to resolve it. Today, the United States Chamber of Commerce called on the Trump administration to drop tariffs on lumber. We are seeing that the pressures are beginning to build. We will continue to work at all levels to resolve this, and we will continue to …
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Madam Speaker, helpful ideas like “Just get a deal done” are not going to get the deal done. We need ideas. We need support for workers, the workers the member and I both care about. How about we work together to help this industry, instead of these histrionics in the House? How about that?
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Madam Speaker, we are in a trade war. We are in a very difficult situation, and in that situation, this government is standing with affected workers. We are moving heaven and earth to help them. We just announced another $500 million of supports two days ago. The member is fully aware of this. We are open to more ideas for more supports. We had a take-note debate the other night. I asked the Conse…
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Madam Speaker, indigenous treaty rights do not need to be spelled out in MOUs; they are inherent, but I do want to talk a little about the MOU and what it allows. The MOU allows us to have a durable climate plan, one that moves the effective price of carbon in Alberta from $25 to $130. It allows us to reduce methane emissions by 75%. It allows us to take carbon out of the air through carbon captur…
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Madam Speaker, the far-reaching memorandum of understanding with Alberta includes a number of timelines. I invite members to read it. By July 1 of next year is when a pipeline proposal will come from the Province of Alberta. There are timelines, and we are seeing that there is not just talk about pipelines, but talks about AI data centres, nuclear energy, and many ways we can grow the Canadian eco…
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Madam Speaker, yesterday was a great day for Canada because it got us onto a better course of action and a more common ground and confederation between Alberta and Canada, which will also lead to a better course of action across the entire country. Part of the agreement was that we would work with British Columbia, that we would work in a tripartite table, and of course, that we would all respect …
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Madam Speaker, tinfoil is actually made of aluminum, so I would like to thank the member for his first act in supporting that sector in the House. The fact of the matter is this: Yesterday, we announced an MOU with Alberta that increases economic prosperity for this country, increases environmental sustainability and the durability of environmental action in this country, and makes us less reliant…
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Mr. Chair, reality is obviously much more complicated. Europe has a 10% tariff, but it is quite far away and does not have the natural advantage of geography that we do. It also does not have the quality of wood we do. One of the benefits of Canadian lumber production is that it is built in an environment that is colder, so the wood becomes more dense. It also allows, because we do it in a more na…
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Mr. Chair, our government is there and will continue to be there to help the Canadian softwood lumber industry. The forestry sector is core to our economy and our Canadian identity. My own family's story has been interwoven with Canadian forestry for centuries. My father David Hogan grew up in mill towns and worked summers at the newsprint mill. My grandfather John Hogan was a career pulp worker w…
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Madam Chair, we have already talked about the fact that, with negotiations, we cannot just magically wish them to go better, but I certainly welcome any suggestions on how to deal with Donald Trump. I wanted to turn to a comment that was made about B.C. and the fact that not all the tenures are being used, which I think is true. The forestry sector, of course, to be successful needs four things. I…
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Mr. Chair, yes, it is possible. Softwood lumber exporters are clearly facing significant debt and need financial assistance in the form of cash flow. However, there are risks associated with such a program, as we have heard. That said, we are open to considering all options that could help boost cash flow and strengthen the sector's financial situation.
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Mr. Chair, I want to extend a special thanks to my colleague because of his work on the biomass ITC, which he was instrumental in helping bring forward. I want to offer a comment that I hope the member will respond to on the trade negotiations with the United States and the psychology of the U.S. President, about which I will be modest in my comments. He is a deal maker, and he does come from a de…
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Mr. Chair, my colleague touched on something we have not discussed enough so far tonight: the effects of climate change on the forestry sector. She is absolutely right; it is creating challenges in terms of the spruce budworm and the pine beetle, and of course it is making forest fires larger in areas quite far away from where we have ever managed woods, because there are drier and hotter conditio…
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Mr. Chair, something my hon. colleague just mentioned has triggered a question. One of the things this chamber needs to understand is that one of the reasons why the United States feels that it does not need Canadian software lumber right now is that lumber prices are very low by historical standards. When prices come up, that pain is going to be felt much more acutely by American consumers. Obvio…
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Mr. Chair, I wanted to inquire about the comments around 30 by 30 and access to economic fibre. I feel that it is hard to blame 30 by 30 for a lack of fibre when, as noted, B.C.'s tenures are not being fully used. In fact, when I look at Scandinavian countries and European countries with a much smaller footprint, they tend to be quite robust in their generation of fibre. This is a very large count…
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Mr. Chair, obviously both are big numbers. We know that the number in support of forestry needs to get even bigger, so stay tuned, because later this week we will have something additional to say on that. In terms of the flowing of funding from the previous announcements, we have just discussed the $700 million in liquidity, which is flowing right now. That money is making its way through. Some bu…
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